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The
unfortunate reality for those of you who run businesses with
models created prior to a few years ago, chances are it is
fundamentally flawed in a world where technology is becoming
increasingly integrated into our lives. We are all becoming more
and more connected to one another, every day and almost
everywhere we go.While the Internet is finally being embraced by most
companies, they seem to be focused on leveraging it as a
marketing mechanism. This logic is flawed. Social Media as it is
commonly referred to is the result of a never before possible
connective tissue that between us. This connection coupled with
the abundance of choice and free time formerly monopolized mostly
by sitting passively in front of the television, is forcing a
shift from a consumer mindset to what some, including me, are
calling the “creator
economy.”

People will participate with one another to add layers of
value to the things they buy and the places they go. Your
business model must be the platform they use to engage in the
exchange of goods and services in ways that are productive for
them and profitable for you. The days when you produce something
on one end for someone else to consume it on the other are over.
It makes no difference what you are selling. If you create it in
a vacuum and broadcast it’s “value” in mass to the public, your
business model is going extinct.

As with most changes that come along in a market, there is
good and bad news for incumbent companies across all industries.
The bad news for larger players is that the same technology that
is growing at such a high rate and creating opportunities for
them is also very inexpensive and widely available. This makes it
easier for those with the ambition to do so, to disrupt entire
industries and change the market conditions permanently. The most
well known example, Craig Newmark from
Craigslist, crippledthe newspaper industry
by changing the way the classifieds business
worked.

You know about Craigslist and the newspapers. You likely
remember Napster and what it did to the music industry. I’m sure
you see that platforms like E-bay, Netflix and Skype are wholly
disruptive to their respective industries but you may not know is
that there are disruptive models popping up in all corners of
industry and they are growing fast:

Now for the good news for those of you that are running
existing companies. You have the advantage of capital, market
knowledge, experienced employees and most importantly customers.
You have all of the ingredients to successfully create and
incubate new models for testing and scaling in a real market.

Don’t sit by and let two guys in a garage dictate the
future of your industry. Dedicate some resources towards looking
at things with fresh eyes.